Though the ultimately doomed nature of Olympic architecture is at this point a well-documented phenomenon, it seems the leftover buildings and arenas from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo—the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina—are especially haunting. Ravaged by a three-and-half-year war between 1992 and 1996, the remains offer a look at overgrown podiums, crumbling judge's booths, and a graffiti-covered bobsled track marred by roughly 30 years of battle and neglect. According to Smithsonian magazine, both sides even used the the Olympic structures as weapon storage, with the bobsled track in particular as an artillery stronghold for Bosnian-Serbs and the mountains behind the ski jumps thick with buried land mines. Take a closer look, below:
· Bosnia's Derelict Architecture is the Eeriest of all Olympic Ruins [Curbed National]
· 1984 Sarajevo Olympics Ruins [Imgur]
· Sarajevo's Abandoned Olympic Sites [Smithsonian Mag]
· Here Now, a Look at the World's Forsaken Olympic Cities [Curbed National]
· All Abandonment Issues posts [Curbed National]